More than two decades ago, when gay men and lesbians were prohibited from serving openly in the U.S. military and no state had legalized same-sex marriages, a national LGBTQ+ rights group decided to promote change by grading corporations on their workplace policies.
The Human Rights Campaign initially focused its report card, named the Corporate Equality Index, on ensuring that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer employees did not face discrimination in hiring and on the job. Just 13 companies received a perfect score in 2002. By last year, 545 businesses did even though the requirements have expanded.
But the scorecard itself has come under attack in recent months by conservative activists who targeted businesses as part of a broader pushback against diversity initiatives. Ford, Harley- Davidson and Lowe’s are among the companies that announced they would no longer participate in the Corporate Equality Index.
Capitalism only does the right then when it doesn’t cost them. As soon as there’s a real cost, doing the right thing goes down the drain.
Capitalism didn’t start accepting women, blacks, latinos, and LGBTQ+ because they are humans with intrinsic value to their lives simply for existing.
No, not at all.
Capitalism started accepting women, blacks, latinos, and LGBTQ+ because they realized they were leaving money on the table.
Some of those people capitalism was rejecting might be good workers, and if they’re a good worker, they might spend money, and if they spend money, the capitalists want them spending their money on their businesses.
Companies really started marketing to women once women were allowed to have their own bank accounts. Coincidence? Hardly.
Once the same thing starts losing them money? It’s out the window.
I mean, sure, that’s easily arguable, but capitalism is currently the only economic system that incentivizes human greed and argues that human greed can be used for good.
How are we supposed to ignore a system that celebrates and rewards some of humanities worst vices?
The thing to consider is that well-developed, critially thinking humans should be weighing the cost of their decisions. I mean it’s in the bible ffs so all these right wingnuts SHOULD be paying attention.
Luke 14:28-30
“But don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you. They would say, ‘There’s the person who started that building and couldn’t afford to finish it!’
I’m past 40 and I’ve never seen so much liberated hate and intolerance. I’m pretty disgusted by the state of the world. Thank capitalism.
This kind of discrimination is literally anti-capitalist. If maximizing profit is the goal, refusing someone for any reason unrelated to how good a worker they’d be (a category everything in the HRC falls under) is counter-productive.
However, if excluding a minority, creates better financial relationships with the majority consumer base, it is in their interest to drop the minority. Capitalism only cares about what seems to maximize profit, and protect it, and if that is benefited by some form of exclusion, that is what will be done.
The vast majority of consumers of the vast majority of companies’ products are completely in the dark about the demographic makeup of its workforce, so even the possibility of this being a factor is minuscule.
These companies were never our allies, fair weather opportunists only willing to say they value us so long as it costs them nothing. I remember the few businesses that would openly support lgbt causes back in the early 90s back when public support was not on our side. These cowardly corpos today get a tiny whiff of fascist whining and immediately throw us under the nearest bus.
Adult lgbtq people are jaded enough against this, but I think about the lgbtq kids who don’t understand why this is happening. And will learn the hard way.
It was Matthew Shepherd’s death that made me an activist, but it’s shit like this that keeps me going.
the kids are busy getting their politics from tiktok lmao ain’t no way they understand what’s happening let alone why in relation to what has come before
